


verdigris and frostbite

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, disgusting fluff overload, platonic clarphy, rare pair?, swimming and sweater swapping and other fluffy garbo, that's really it just fluff and a peppering of angsty teenagery thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5141636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you care about me?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>He nods once. Looks towards the clouds. She follows his gaze. It looks like a house. A square house with a little triangle roof. </p><p>“What do you care about?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	verdigris and frostbite

“It had to be you.”

Murphy snorts at that as she crosses the room and tousles the sopping mess of brown atop his head with a raggedy towel-like cloth. Roughly.

He swats her hands away and tucks his chin over his knees, curling close to one of Raven’s ingenious electrical tent heaters- something he hadn’t acquired, miraculously- and Clarke releases a rather huffy breath in exasperation as he soaks up the warmth. Her warmth. “You’re not staying.”

“Like you said, what if I get hypothermia? I can’t do quality work with hypothermia.”

“You dig and fill the shit holes.”

“Sanitation workers are a vital aspect of any thriving community.”

Clarke hums in a low tone, hopefully encouraging him to shut his mouth. “You fell in a lake, I saved your sorry ass-” She wrings the water out of her hair and turns a soggy boot upside down, the small stream that trickles from it standing as proof of her endeavors. “I’ve done my part. Get out of my tent, Murphy.”

In response, he hugs the blanket around him tighter, tipping over sideways and lying in fetal position on the floor of the tent- looking like a pre-apocalypse house cat slumbering before a fireplace.

“I’ll ask you one more time before you’re forcibly removed.”

She peers down at his stilled figure, eyelids fluttering and twitching, chest rising and falling evenly. The ‘drip’ ‘drip’ of his soaked hair releasing droplets onto the tent floor, color returning to already ghostly pale skin. She sighs, nudging the sleeping form with a wet socked foot. No response, as she had expected. “Whatever.”

Clarke peels off her soaked clothes, looking over her shoulder often to make sure the wet rat on her floor is still unconscious, and changes into her makeshift sleepwear- a luxury the campers have had since the official end of the war.

Her fingers slip on a disobedient button when the chattering of teeth resounding off the canvas walls makes her jump. The blonde twists to glance back at the shivering blob of blankets and recalls the drenched clothing presently enveloping her visitor.

“Curse my nurturing personality," she mutters, digging through her generous-sized pile of clothing, (she’s a sucker for options, what can she say?) Clarke pinches a grey Mt. Weather civilian’s sweatshirt that she just had to have when given the choice, but can’t seem to bring herself to wear, and a pair of socks.

What? He can’t clean the latrines without toes, right? Give a girl a break.

“Murphy. Murphy- wake up.” She shakes his shoulder, and then shrinks away, knowing-unfortunately-from experience, that some of the delinquents lash out if woken during nightmares. He stirs awake without much fuss other than an abrupt lift of his head, eyes like verdigris darting about the space around her- in search of something.

“Change your clothes.”

He stands, off-balanced and unusually quiet, seemingly in a stupor- and she thrusts the shirt and socks into his shaking hands, tinted blue with the cold. That part of Clarke’s mind that she hates reminds her there’s a good chance he would’ve frozen to death in his own tent- wet clothes, no heater, that one shitty blanket that’s a essentially a patchwork experiment she remembers tossing at him when he complained about the lack of one. She turns away from him and collapses into her cot, facing the tent canvas glowing orange with the reflection from her electric lantern.

Shut up, brain.

“I don’t mind if you watch.”

“Shut up, Murphy.”

She hears the sound of saturated clothing dropping to the floor and being kicked aside as the fabric of her cot suddenly becomes very interesting.

“How do I look?”

Clarke stifles a grin as she rolls over, his hands on what hips that he has, smoothing out the shirt that reaches his knees- as if he were supposed to be modeling for her. Looking so much younger (so much his true age) that she almost found it disturbing, Clarke blinks away and looks towards a stitched seam in the canvas above her, which demands her immediate attention.

“Hideous as usual. Night, Murphy.”

“We’re not gonna use this invaluable bonding time to discuss our relationship in this intimate-” He cranks up the heater a single notch, “-setting?”

“You’ve got a knack for the theatrics, don’t you?”

“Throw me roses, won’t you?”

Clarke groans, biting the inside of her cheek as not to make her impending smile become known.

“You’re not so bad when you’re not-- get your underwear off of my heater right now, you absolute piece of shit.”

He shrugs and gives her a sheepish smile, flicking his vomit-inducing level of disgusting briefs off of her sole source of warmth. She wasn’t entirely sure he had been given a change of underwear since he was locked up. “I figured they should dry somewhere.”

“You can keep the sweater.” Clarke almost gags. He can’t hide his a shark-like grin at that, before his presumably weak legs crumple beneath him and he’s found shelter under the mountain of blankets again.

Only this time, he’s facing her cot.

“Turn around Murphy.”

He ignores her completely, staring unblinking in her direction, the stubborn pest that is he is. Clarke grunts, turning over and facing the opposite side of the tent once again.

A sincere moment of silence passes, and Clarke finds that the cloud of tension following Jonathan Murphy wherever he goes is unusually absent.

“Goodnight,” he mumbles.

“Goodnight,” she answers.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he mutters.

...

“That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow,” she whispers.

Clarke peeks over her shoulder and cracks a tired eye open just in time to see a peaceful look cross his face, as he scoots further under the blankets to hide the smile that threatens behind a wall of fabric.

...

Shut up, brain.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

“You got me off of work early to drag me out to my death in the forest, then?”

“As lovely as that sounds, I’m not going to kill you... or at least haven’t planned on it.”

He snorts, kicking his way through the tall grass, leaving a few feet between the two sojourners of the valley.

“Quit stomping down the flowers you heartless bitch.”

Clarke becomes aware of the wildflowers crushed beneath heavy boots in her wake, and takes note of how he avoids them, with narrowed eyes and a suddenly heavy heart.

“We’re almost there.”

“Are you shoving me in the lake? Is this payback?” He stops cold in his tracks, ready to turn back. “I’m not sure why I agreed to come out here with you in the first place.

The little leader continues walking, tossing her hair over her shoulder to spare a glance back at the statue of a boy. “You’re desperate.”

He chuckles, a bright, room-filling laugh that would’ve warmed her heart had she liked or respected him as a human being even an ounce. And then he starts walking.

-

When the sun glistens off of the water and the cattails whisper to the tall lakeside grass, she stops in her tracks.

“Clarke, we’ve been walking for like, two hours!” a voice whines, almost shrill. Clarke smirks.

“Take off your clothes.”

He coughs, spluttering, pale face burning cherry red.

She revels in it.

“What the hell, man?”

She kicks off her boots and peels away her socks, and a jittery Murphy turns towards the trees in the distance. “What are you doing? Wh-what the hell is going on?”

She’s ridden herself of her cargo pants and t-shirt, and quickly jogs down to the water. “Come on, asshole. The water’s fine.”

His impossibly large eyes cease widening, and begin to do the opposite instead, morphing into narrow, questioning slits.

“Why?”

“Can’t friends do things together just because?”

He laughs, something bitter and lacking the sunshine that had poured from him so generously the previous time.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“You want friends so bad, come and get one.”

He takes that as some passive aggressive sort of challenge, she notices, as he begins to rid himself of clothing piece by piece. She glances at an impressive cloud somewhere to the right of him, before a blinding flash of white speeds past her and submerges into the blue-green oblivion.

She ducks under with wide eyes, sinking to his level. He squats, bare feet digging into the mud at the bottom of the shallow water. They meet eyes and he grins, tiny bubbles sneaking through his teeth. She almost smiles back.

Almost.

He rises, moisture glistening on almost stark white, and Clarke sees ice in late spring. “I’m blinded,” she mutters, absently tearing tiny rocks out of the soft mud with her toes. 

“Shut up.”

She crosses her arms, and he closes his eyes against the warm embrace of the sun. “I’m not afraid of you. You’ve got no power since you went on vacation.”

“Neither do you!” she shouts, and a few birds flee loudly from the grass beyond them, startled and squawking.

“Can’t miss what you never had,” he states, and ironically almost sounds proud.

She glares, wading further into the water with only her eyes above, golden hair floating around her like a halo. For a moment, she allows herself to pretend that she’s a seaweed monster and Murphy is a minnow, and she’s going to eat him.

“What’d you bring me out here for? I know I’m a real catch but I also know you could have any company you wanted. Why me?”

“You’re no special snowflake. I’m guaranteeing that the camp’s invaluable sanitation workers have the necessary skills to ensure that they will continue to produce quality work without interruption," she recites, and he sighs.

“Enlighten me, Princess.”

She gives him a biting stare at that.

“You can’t swim. I can. We’re in a lake. Here’s the pieces, solve the puzzle.”

Murphy’s face flashes with a variety of emotions, before he just shakes his head. The tiniest of smiles on chapped lips trained to be solemn and to be shut, lips so dry and idle they burst and they bleed bittersweet when he smiles brightly enough to put the sun to shame, and God, oh God, does she know the feeling. Tongue tugging on a leash, it could hurt to speak and they’ll choke but the words come falling out, beating fists on the backs of red teeth to escape a prison that suddenly felt more like home than a sky box ever did.

She supposes that’s what happens when you put a welcome mat in front of a penitentiary.

“Say what you’re thinking.”

He blinks. Once, twice. A third time. She looks away.

“Do you care about me?”

“No.”

He nods once. Looks towards the clouds. She follows his gaze. It looks like a house. A square house with a little triangle roof. 

“What do you care about?”

A tree in the front yard, strings of cottony stratus line up like tallies, a family.

“Saving lives-”

“-instead of taking them,” he finishes for her. She doesn’t want to think about what it means.

An itty-bitty chimney, with smoke coming out. That means there’s a fire burning inside. It’s to keep them warm, not burn it down.

It could.

“I care.”

“About me?”

“I could," he answers, and then he’s under the water again.

She drags a pale, glistening fist over her own mouth. Wipes off the smile on the back of her hand. She looks at her knuckles, yellowish and scarred. 

It’s, admittedly, a very lovely smile to the touch. She hasn’t seen it in a while.

-

“Kick your legs, I know you’ve got muscle what with all that running from consequences you’ve been doing.”

He obeys, as Clarke grasps his right hand and swims in front of him, tugging him along. “You’d think you’d have learned after crossing the sea twice and living in a lighthouse on the beach for four months.” “Just saying.”

Too busy fighting to stay afloat, Murphy finds himself, for once in his life, lacking a smart ass retort. He slips under once more, and she grunts, pushing his water-light weight back to the surface again with knees sharper than knives. He comes up sputtering, and she watches as water pours out of his cartoon nose like a sickness.

“You’re doing good, for a kid who’s probably never even been in a bathtub.”

“Sorry Princess, we’re not all upper-class citizens.”

Instead of a steely glare, she smiles with her eyes. Blue like the sky and Johnny boy’s nearly frostbitten fingers. “We’re all the scum of the earth, here.”

“I must have managed to get lower, somehow.”

“Yeah, you’re kind of the worst.”

They laugh together.

He goes under choking on water.

She enjoys it.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-3 weeks later-

“You finished with your shift already?” the head of curls interrogates, and Clarke nods, watching an approaching figure out of the corner of her eye.

“Who are you looking for?” he questions, taking a sip from the cup of moonshine in her grasp. She snatches it away playfully, and he gives a cheesy smile in response.

They settle at their table as the form comes closer, raggedy jacket hanging off of one shoulder, untied boots kicking up dust and dirt, light shining through holes in fabric like a celestial being.

“You’re waiting for Murphy?” Bellamy asks, a thick veil of confusion coating his tone. “Why? What's he coming towards you for?”

It’s too late to answer when the kid arrives, leaning a palm on the table behind him and flicking a curl of Bellamy’s hair out of place. The eldest Blake raises an eyebrow, casually sips his poison.

“Darest thou, Clarkeius, now. Leap in with me into this angry flood?”

She tilts her head, as he stares at her hopefully.

“And swim to yonder point?”

A lazy smile crosses his lips as she rises from her seat and bids Bellamy a goodbye. 

All eyes in the mess hall are on the two as a blur of blonde grabs his jacket and tugs him along, running through the tables like two bullets fired from a gun. 

Towards the sun, towards the water. Towards the mud on her feet and the wildflowers in his pockets. Towards being kids again. Towards laughter, towards good.

Towards good.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back- back again.
> 
> Hope you liked it or hated it or didn't care. I'm just surprised you read to the bottom.
> 
> Tell me what you thought, pretty please? Makes me happy and stuff. Kudos would be kool if you wanna.


End file.
